After weeks of sometimes painful drip-feeding, there's a bit more pace to this fourth episode, and the carnival mystery demists slightly. Each of the three subplots being juggled were entertaining in their own right (which is half the battle for Heroes these days), so while I still don't feel thrilled overall, this did feel like an overdue step forward.The weakest story belonged to Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), although his budding romance of deaf hospital file clerk Emma (Deanne Bray) is at least more mature writing than you'd expect from Heroes. Here, there's a really quite wonderful sequence where Emma watches a police car pass her, its siren emanating pink light, distracting her enough to wander in front of bus, whereby super-fast Peter rescues her from a squelchy end. And, of course, having touched her, Peter unwittingly leeches Emma's ability and (in quite a funny, "impotent Superman" scene) discovers he's no longer gifted with super-speed as he tries to hotfoot it down an alley.
With Peter finally realizing Emma's deaf (she's deaf, he's dumb, it's a match made in heaven!) and getting to grips with her newfound ability, he realizes he has something in common with her through which to make a connection. Although his later avowal she's part of a genus of people with super-powers inevitably scares her away! It was also nice to see that Emma's apparently useless power (albeit helpful for a blind person) does pack an unexpected punch, as she accidentally brandishes the sound-waves from playing a cello and cracks her apartment's wall in half with the sonics.
Elsewhere, Sylar (Zachary Quinto) emerged from his shallow grave and was found by passing policeman Captain Lubbock (Ghostbusters' Ernie Hudson), who had a psychologist (Christine Adams) analyse him to determine he's suffering from a type of aphasia. It's yet another way to de-fang Sylar, who is now reduced to a wide-eyed chowderhead because his true personality is residing in Matt Parkman's mind. Of course, once Lubbock identifies Sylar as New York watchmaker Gabriel Gray, a fugitive wanted for murdering his mother, Sylar's powers begin to exhibit themselves in self-defense and he escapes with the psychologist he formed an attachment to.
Despite this being a somewhat repetitive way to neuter the near-omnipotent Sylar for the umpteenth time, at least the story developed swiftly and ended on a promising note -- with Sylar evading capture through a forest crawling with cops, to stumble upon the Sullivan Brothers' circus, thus becoming the carny's first "catch". It was a welcome sign of direction for Samuel's (Robert Knepper) group, too, as it appears confirmed they exist to lure "supers" into their close-knit family. The moment of Samuel's appearance with his teleporting circus was suitably eerie and fanciful, too; a moment of true magical wonderment in a starchy sci-fi world.
The carnival don't really have much to do this episode, but their background scheming provided a fun conclusion to Claire's (Hayden Panettiere) story this week. The college adventures of Claire Bennett were in danger of becoming a plodding bore, but this episode perked things up as Claire starts to believe her new friend Gretchen (Madeline Zima) has ulterior motives for getting to know her...
After discovering Gretchen's laptop is full of photos and articles about her and her suicidal roomie (nutters don't delete their internet history in TV-land), Claire faces the worrying possibility that Gretchen an obsessive stalker-type. During Claire and Gretchen's attempt to be accepted into a sorority during a social "mixer", a girl Claire was talking to narrowly misses being skewered by a fallen flagpole, and Claire becomes convinced Gretchen's insecure enough to murder those standing between them (including her dead roommate?)
But in a rather neat development, it's revealed that Gretchen's not sinister at all. She's just a little infatuated with the diminutive former-cheerleader and seals her feelings with a surprising kiss*, seconds before the sorority clique arrived to formally welcome them into their house. And then came a clever twist I hadn't considered, as we meet Samuel's niece, sorority girl Becky -- who has the power of invisibility and has been manipulating Claire's college experience from day one (pushing her roommate out the window to her death, trying to frame Gretchen for murder) all in a bid to try and isolate her.
So it seems that Samuel's family are trying to maneuver people into joining their mob, willingly. I'm not sure what their ultimate plan could be, or how it ties into Samuel's dead brother and that compass tattoo, but at least the carnival feels like it has its finger in more than one pie now. I'm not sure it's been wise to resort to a treacle-like pace with the emphasis on characterisation these past five episodes, purely to ensure the story lasts the distance, but that's always been a problem for Heroes. It's either ladling on the special-effects and action to a deadening degree, or testing your patience with its often feeble attempts to appear more meaningful than it could ever be.Still, credit where it's due, "Hysterical Blindness" was a satisfactory episode and perhaps the best of this season so far. Incidentally, not that I miss him and his pretentious voice-overs, but what the hell happened to Mohinder?
12 October 2009
NBC, 9/8c
written by: Joe Pokaski directed by: SJ Clarkson starring: Milo Ventimiglia (Peter), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Masi Oka (Hiro), Cristine Rose (Angela), Hayden Panettiere (Claire), Robert Knepper (Samuel Sullivan), Madeline Zima (Gretchen), Louise Fletcher (Doctor), Deanne Bray (Emma), Christine Adams (Police Psychologist) & Ernie Hudson (Captain Lubbock)
* A moment used to publicize Heroes weeks before the episode in question actually aired, which felt a bit desperate of NBC.
